


She never tells you that you were born angry

by demonn



Series: I’ll do anything for you [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Mentions of Cancer, Ok this is real angsty, Wait he is, ben hunts the place for a second, death during childbirth, diegos stint inn police academy, for once reggie isn’t in the angst, like we talk about some really painful topics, mentions oof luther’s General dickheadedness, mentioons of gangs/ mafia in China, one child policy, selling your children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 06:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17975987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonn/pseuds/demonn
Summary: your mother fought for her life on a kitchen floor for you, the least you can do is live it.OrDiego, Klaus and Ben talk about their mothers.





	She never tells you that you were born angry

**Author's Note:**

> ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST
> 
> (Give me more coffee and cheesecake and whipped cream)
> 
> ❤️❤️❤️

“This is...fun?” The statement was followed by a the jerky movement of Diego pushing down the hood of the car. “This would be a good time to have Luther on hand.”

“There is never a good time for Luther,” Diego said, a hint of a smile on his face despite their shitty circumstances. “At least we’re not stuck out in the desert, little man.”

“In the desert it’s very possible that I would have resulted to eating sand and not-“ Klaus looked up and down the street “-Fischbrötchen? Out of all the places in New York we stopped in front of the place that sells _Fischbrötchen_?”

“You _love_ German.” Klaus sent Diego a chilling look, his heavy black coat and turtleneck giving him a severe look, one that was dimmed by the various amounts of patches and pins he’d accumulated from their travels. Paired with the red fez with yellow tassels that he’d gotten from a thrift shop, he looked almost petulant and haphazard; which was to say - he looked like he normally did.

“I _am_ German, doesn’t mean I like Fischbrötchen. Mom forced it on me once while the old man was out, all types. Pickled fish, fried fish, all different types of onions. It was horrible, even after I satisfied my harrowing drug addiction, the taste would draw me back to reality. It was disgusting.”

“They sell käsespätzle, apfelkuchen and that sugary Crystal thing that you told me you liked once.”

“That’s just rock sugar-“

“Just sugar? And I let you consume like 3 boxes of it?” Diego recoiled. “You could have been sick and vomit all over my car!”

“Funnily enough, Love, that’s what Ben said. Told me it was bad for my health and that I could be sick. The German lady who frequents sometimes looked at me in clear, German, disdain.”

“How can disdain be- you know what? Never mind. I don’t even want to know how disdain can be German.”

-

“You ever think about your pa- mother. You ever think about your mother?” Klaus said, stumbling over his mistake. He’d moved on from his slice of apfelkuchen to käsekuchen, savouring the taste of sweet quark on his tongue. Cheesecake had always been his favourite and mingled with the sour taste of homemade quark, he felt closer to home. Closer than he had been in a long time.

Diego was hunched over his own slice of apfelkuchen, bypassing his slice of cheesecake for kirschenmichel, taking alternate bites of the desserts. Revelling in the bitter cherry taste combined with the tart apple.

“You mean at the house?” He’d loved her like she was real flesh and blood, like she had been the one to birth him and bring him into the world. It had left the sour tinge of guilt deep in his stomach, but he’d shaken that off long ago; there were things to feel guilty for and loving someone was not one of them.

She had always smelt like cinnamon and honey detergent and home, even hen she smelt a little like metal. He didn’t care that she had been made by old man Hargreeves himsl f, not when she loved him and gave him a name and his past the day he left the nest.

“No, your real mom. The one that birthed you, y’know?”

Diego had seen the photos of her; young and pretty and wild, too wild. She had been too young to do what she did, too young to do what she did with a baby on her hands. He had resented her for some time before he realised she really had no choice and decided that knowing she had sold her own child for fifty-thousand dollars was punishment enough, there was no point not in chasing her down and making her pay for something she probably regretted anyway. There was no use in being bitter and angry when it would bring him absolutely nothing.

“You ever wish you could have met her?” Klaus continued after a beat or two, hands clenching and unclenching around his fork. “You could have known-“

“Y-Yes,” Diego finally answered, “I always wish I could have met her, sometimes. I could still meet her, b-but I don’t really want to, y’know. Don’t want to expose myself to what could have been my reality in person. She was so young, and so pretty. I have her eyes, and her skin and her hair but I have her brothers jaw and her mother’s eyebrows.”

“What was her name?” The questionsounded bitten off, incomplete almost.

 

“Her name’s Soledad, Soledad Vasquez and she lives somewhere in Vegas now. She has 2 other children, Vincenzo and Socorro. I don’t want to ruin that for her or her family, I don’t want to make it harder for her.”

“We could always, I don’t know? Just watch her?”

“N-no. What’s it gonna bring me? Closure? There was no opening to begin with.” He leaned back, taking a sip of his dark coffee. “Now come on, little man, you don’t get to sit here and talk about ma’s without talking about Ben’s one and your one. Come on, spill.”

Klaus shifted, forking a larger bite of cheesecake into his mouth. “From what we read in the file, Ben’s Chinese and because of the one child policy, his mother gave him away. Or rather, sold him, isn’t that right Ben? One point five million yen which is only around ten thousand pounds and thirteen point three thousand US dollars give or take. Wealthy, kind, secluded. Donated every cent to charity, that lady. She’s dead, cancer I think.” He paused. “Yes, cancer. Ovarian.”

Diego turned slightly to the left where he presumed Ben was by the way klaus was angling his body. “Well that’s shitty.”

“He says he doesn’t care, that she gave him away to a monster when she could have kept him and he could have lived a happy life.”

“Not when the kraken lived inside him, little man. He would have gone to Hargreeves at a later age and that, over anything else, would have been the worst. You have a taste at a normal, private life then it’s ripped away from you because you can’t keep your tentacles in control.” He watched the way klaus flinched, the cold breeze and rattling window shutters shocking the, into silence. It was obvious it was Ben cause I gotta it, and while Diego had known his words would cause some sort of negative emotions, he didn’t know that the guy would full on _haunt_ the place.

“Hey, Hey, dude, I’m sorry,” he started, hands flying up in the universal sign for ‘backing off’. “I didn’t know it would m-make you soo angry, but it’s the truth. Do you think you would have coped knowing your happy, perfect family gave you away to a monster like Hargreeves?”

There was a pause then the rattling and strong winds stopped completely. “He says it wasn’t happy, not perfect. Her husband, he- he was horrible. Part of the Hong Kong triad. Dangerous life, organised crime.”

“Oh shit, man, I’m sorry.” Diego started down into the dregs of his coffee, trying to shave the little sugar rock onto powder with one of his knives. Over and over and over before he moved onto another, then he repeated the process.

“My mother, she didn’t have a say in any of it,” klaus started, eyes fixed on the little lady behind the counter cooing German into her outdated phone. “She died in childbirth. She- she couldn’t have children and then the world, or whatever, forced her to give birth to one.”

Diego’s hand reached out, enveloping Klaus’ and running the rough pad of his thumb against old scars. He didn’t know what to say, he didn’t think he needed to say anything. It would probably come out crude and insensitive. Diego had been whittled away into a man who had to think with his fists and that didn’t always have to equate to violence.

(He’d been told, back when he was fresh out of police academy, that his head was no good if he couldn’t control his hands. He’d anted to say that he didn’t care about his head, not when all it contained were painful memories and things he would rather forget. What counted was in his heart and as long as his heart was in the right place he’d be ok.

He’d driven around town until he found Klaus, high off his ass and cold, and wrapped him in a blanket and drove into the desert and he didn’t have to think about it at all.)

He rubbed his thumb down over to Klaus’ pulse point, moving back up to the heel of his hand. The skinny man took a shuddering breath, licking his lips. “She- she bled out all over the floor of her kitchen and her brother gave me to old man Hargreeves the moment he came. His name was Niklaus and I look just like him.”

“You ever see her?” Diego asked, voice low and careful. He cleared his throat, voice an octave higher than normal. “You ever see her?”

“Yes,” klaus stuttered out, eyes gaining that glassy, faraway look. “All the time.”


End file.
